state-owned RTNC TV to read the presidential decree firing Deputy
Premier François-Joseph Nzanga Mobutu (photo above). No reason was
given for the dismissal.
Nzanga Mobutu, the son of the erstwhile Zairian dictator Joseph-Désiré
Mobutu Sese-Seko, was in charge of labor and social planning
portfolios. He's the leader of the "Union des Démocrates Mobutistes"
(UDEMO), a party that is still a member of the ruling Alliance of the
Presidential Majority (AMP) whose MPs in the National Assembly also
voted for the constitutional revision promulgated last January by the
Raïs. No one knows yet whether this dismissal would trigger the
withdrawal of UDEMO from AMP.
Some pundits read the fact that it was Kabila's senior legal advisor
who read the presidential decree instead of the Communication Minister
as giving the full measure of the ever widening rift between the prez
and the son of the "great leopard."
However, this formal dismissal of Nzanga Mobutu came as no major
surprise to the Congolese. Nzanga Mobutu has been absent from the
country since last November when he left for The Vatican to attend the
ceremonies of the making of Kinshasa Archbishop Monsengwo a cardinal
by Pope Benedict XVI. Thus, he might have silently resigned months ago
without having the common courtesy to write a letter of resignation to
his boss.
During his absence from the country, Nzanga Mobutu has given
interviews to Congolese journalists in which he's been claiming that
the DRC government is a powerless and meaningless entity in the face
of the formidable presidential power.
Be that as it might, all that glitters is not gold, as the saying
goes. Nzanga Mobutu, despite his reputation of a technocrat, has been
conspicuously incompetent since making his entry into Joseph Kabila's
government in 2006.
He was first appointed a deputy premier in charge of the important
ministry of agriculture and fisheries, where, for more than two years
he failed to come up with original ideas to revitalize that critical
sector. Then, at the helm of the labor and social planning--a de facto
demotion--he turned into just a figurehead, at the very most tolerated
by the Raïs for the sake of preserving the unity of the AMP.
It's not yet clear if Nzanga Mobutu will run again for president this
year as he did in 2006.
Incidentally, Nzanga Mobutu is married to the younger sister of
warlord and former DRC Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba, who's being
tried at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against
humanity perpetrated by his troops in the Central African Republic
(CAR).
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